“But Jesus remained silent. And the high priest said to him, “I adjure you by the living God, tell us if you are the Christ, the Son of God.” Jesus said to him, “You have said so. But I tell you, from now on you will see the Son of Man seated at the right hand of Power and coming on the clouds of heaven.” Then the high priest tore his robes and said, “He has uttered blasphemy. What further witnesses do we need? You have now heard his blasphemy. What is your judgment?” They answered, “He deserves death.” Then they spit in his face and struck him. And some slapped him, saying, “Prophesy to us, you Christ! Who is it that struck you?””
Matthew 26:63-68 ESV (Psalm 2:1–12, Mark 1:11, Luke 3:22, Acts 4:25–28, Acts 13:33, Hebrews 1:5, Hebrews 5:5)
The Son of God.
Pause.
Just sit in the weight of that title.
We are so irreverent in our culture; in our humanity. We were made in the image of God and yet so often we cast God in the image of man. We would like to think that we are wise. We point to our technology and our accomplishments, but we forget that it is the fear of the Lord that is the beginning of wisdom. Where is our fear?
This isn’t even the main point of today’s devotional. I just can’t simply read the passage above and not be taken back by the arrogance of man in the face of God and not be reminded of my own sinful pride.
The Son of God.
One thing we have to understand is that “Son of God” is a title, an identifier of which Person of the Trinity that we are talking about, not a reference to some sort of eternity past birthing event.
In the ancient Jewish culture, the adult son had the full legal weight of his father to buy, sell and make deals and transactions in his father’s name. The son carried the authority of the father and it was assumed that whatever he said was coming from and on behalf of the father. In carrying the title “the Son of God,” Jesus was saying that the authority by which He spoke was from the authority of God. It wasn’t, “I’m the Son of God, so if you don’t listen to me, I’ll tell my daddy.” It was, “Everything I say and do has the full weight of the words of God.”
“So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.”
John 5:19 ESV
“Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works.”
John 14:9-10 ESV
This is a convicting truth for those who wish to unhitch from the Old Testament or who believe that Jesus is somehow saying anything different or inconsistent with the message of God throughout the first 39 books of the Bible. Jesus has not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it to completion. He is the image of the invisible.